DRIVE along any Australian road and you’ll find it littered with rubbish that we Australians have left behind.
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I’ve often noticed the number of cars proudly flying the Australian flag while the occupants dispose of their rubbish for someone else to collect. Proud Australians indeed!
It appears as though 90 per cent of NSW voters want a cash-for-containers system to be introduced in this state.
Apparently, consumers are prepared to pay a 10c levy, as occurs in South Australia. A similar scheme is working in the Northern Territory and one recycling company stated that it had collected 200,000 containers a month just from one shopping centre; that’s practically a quarter of a million containers per year. Oh what a difference that must have made to the environment.
Beverage companies are against the introduction, and in the NT they wanted the containers to be collected not just by what material the containers were made out of, but also by 30 different brand types, which would have made any scheme unworkable.
Fortunately, the NT government stuck to its plans and introduced a more sensible scheme. If NSW introduces such a scheme, I can envisage school kids making extra pocket money, schools having collection days, and, more importantly, a cleaner Australia, with perhaps less rubbish in our waterways.
The Baird government is to be congratulated for discussing such a scheme, but there will be a fight from the beverage companies, just as there was in South Australia and the Northern Territory.
If you wish to have a cleaner Australia and cleaner oceans, then write a letter of support to the Premier, Mike Baird, and to your local MP, care of Parliament House, Macquarie St, Sydney.
Also mention that you want items to be collected as glass, plastics and metal; no other category of collection is needed. But get the letter off before February, when the NSW Cabinet will make its decision.
Tony Doherty
Cundletown